A new survey reveals that reports of mould and damp in homes have rocketed as thousands of tenants pay the price in poor health for having to live with it.
Since 2019, Scotland has seen reports of mould and damp increase by 200 percent among social tenants, with Glasgow seeing a stark increase of 500 per cent.
But their non communications department, where it’s the officers who make the decisions, refuse to give us the figures for West Dunbartonshire.
The data, obtained through Freedom of Information Requests to every local authority and housing association, shows that reports have from 8,712 to 26,514 across Scotland and 758 to 4,609 in Glasgow.
Reports of black mould have increased exponentially in the last five years.
Tenants of affected properties have contracted silent pneumonia and chest infections and their GPs have said these could be caused by dampness and breathing in mould.
New legislation comes into force for the social rented sector from October 27. The law means social landlords in England will have to address all emergency, damp and mould hazards that present a significant risk of harm to tenants.
It will be implemented in Scotland’s rented sector from March 2026, subject to the Holyrood parliament’s agreement. As a result, social housing residents in Scotland will be given greater protection against issues of disrepair in their homes, such as damp and mould.
Stephanie Mander, Social Justice Policy Manager, Citizens Advice Scotland said: “The scale and severity of these issues, and more importantly, the real-life impact on people’s physical and mental health is profound. We welcome work in this area being taken forward by the Scottish Government – there needs to be bold and urgent action to address repairs and significant investment to deal with damp and mould, so that everyone has a safe, secure and sustainable home.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Housing Regulator said: “The Scottish Government introduced the Scottish Housing Quality Standard in 2004 and this requires social landlords to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet specific standards including being free from damp. All social landlords are required to report their compliance with the Scottish Housing Quality Standard to us annually in their Annual Return on the Charter.
“Following consultation, we will require all social landlords to provide further information to us on the average length of time to resolve cases of damp and/or mould, how many cases were reopened and the number of open cases at the year end. Social landlords will submit this information which will also be broken down by whether the cases were caused by condensation or structural issues in their next Annual Return on the Charter in May 2026 and we will publish the outcomes from this.”
One angry householder said: “It’s all very well monitoring the houses that have black mould but that does nothing to clear it if you don’t take action to remove it.”
The Council refused to comment to The Democrat, but their website says: “
Why are we installing environmental sensors in our homes?
West Dunbartonshire Council has recently reviewed its approach to damp and mould complaints in its homes.
We want to become more proactive in managing our homes to protect them against damp and mould occurring and environmental sensors can help us do that.
The sensors are connected to a dashboard and an AI trained algorithm which will highlight properties with high damp and mould risk which need investigation.
This investigation might involve a visit from a building services officer to rule out anything structural and check your home has sufficient ventilation.